The field of this invention relates to the construction of houses, buildings and the like, and more particularly to a new and novel building block to be utilized in the construction of houses, buildings and the like.
The customary manner of constructing a building or a house, if it is to be formed of bricks or concrete blocks, is by utilizing a layer of mortar over the top and over the sides of the block and then positioning of blocks in a horizontally in-line manner and vertically stacked on top of each other. One row of blocks is to be horizontally staggered with respect to the next row of blocks, and so forth. This general manner of assemblying blocks is a time tested method of construction, upon which few improvements have been made. This method of building is time consuming, requiring a certain amount of special skill and experience by the individuals doing the construction.
The using of masonry (bricks and concrete blocks) in the constructing of buildings and houses has certain disadvantages. One well known disadvantage is that it is a relatively poor insulator. This means that during times of hot weather, heat is transmitted through the blocks into the interior of the building and in times of cold weather, the reverse is also true. As a result, heating and cooling costs for the interior of the constucted building are not as low as they could be.
Additionally, concrete and brick are known to be rather porous. Moisture can readily pass through the building from the exterior to the interior. This is not only undesirable from a humidity point of view, but also the collected moisture on the inside of the building can be damaging to interior surfaces.
Another disadvantage of bricks and concrete is their weight. Such masonry is inherently heavy and therefore not only requires that the mason be of a physical strength to be able to manipulate the masonry blocks, but also the cost of transporting the masonry blocks to the job site is substantially increased.
At the present time, there are known a substantial number of different materials which were not available only a few years ago. The use of such materials has not been incorporated in the building construction field. It would be desirable to construct a building block which is light in weight, relatively inexpensive, has good thermally insulative qualities, and could be utilized at the job site by individuals of limited special skill.